1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates in general to the field of information handling systems, and more specifically, to managing assignment of shared storage resources in a blade server environment.
2. Description of the Related Art
As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to users is information handling systems. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
The amount of data information handling systems manage continues to grow, driving the need for scalable systems that not only sustain information integrity and availability, but also make efficient use of computing resources. A popular approach to addressing this need is the use of blade servers, which generally comprise a number of individual computer blades housed within a chassis that provides a common power supply, cooling, and management resources. Each computer blade typically includes one or more processors, computer memory, network connections, and computer storage. An advantage to this approach is that users, applications and/or processes can be assigned to specific computer blades and/or spread across available resources. As additional processing power or capacity is needed, additional computer blades are added to the blade server.
However, the amount of computer storage available for each blade is generally constrained by the number and capacity of the disk drives it can physically accommodate. While some systems allow blades to share each other's disk resources, it has become common to have a consolidated data storage unit that combines disk and other storage resources to service multiple blades comprising one or more blade servers. These consolidated data storage units are typically implemented as a redundant array of independent disks (RAID) subsystem, which can share and/or replicate data across multiple disk drives, any of which can typically be replaced (i.e., hot swapped) while the system is running. The RAID subsystem may be externally implemented, coupled by a high-speed interconnect to the blade server, or internally implemented as a storage blade that shares the mid-plane of the blade server with computer blades. Regardless of its physical implementation, it is common practice to partition storage resources comprising the RAID subsystem through the use of logical unit number (LUN) masking, such that storage allocated to one blade or server is not visible or available to others.
Current methods of assigning LUNs that utilize host-unique identifiers can present certain disadvantages, especially in a blade environment. For example, before shared storage resources can be assigned to a computer blade, it must first be installed in a corresponding blade server and be implemented with appropriate host software. As another example, storage resources assigned to a failed computer blade will not be accessible by the replacement blade until the storage controller is reconfigured to recognize the blade's unique host identifier. In view of the foregoing, there is a need for shared storage resources to be automatically assigned, or reassigned, to blade computers in a blade server environment.